<p>Hi Keylimepie</p>
<p>Hope the PM helped…</p>
<p>Perhaps we should have parents here list schools their kids dropped off the list for that reason…kiddo eliminated several–</p>
<p>I need to get started on the sr dedication page. Has anyone done / finished theirs? </p>
<p>Also–what is a normal grad gift and grad party idea in your area…?</p>
<p>mosb: How sorry I was to read about your mom’s illness but not at all surprised but your competency in handling the whole thing so quickly and well! Like others here, I too have had to deal w/ both my parents getting ill and my father’s death. It’s tough emotionally, physically, and compounded w/ my responsibilities at home, logistically. I second someone’s else recommendation: in these stressful situations, make sure you take care of yourself too b/c usually that’s the first thing to fall by the wayside.</p>
<p>Fog & keylimepie, my son has wondered about some schools on list. He recognizes that college drinking is prevalent but wants to be in an environment where it isn’t weird if he abstains. We saw Dartmouth on a beautiful August day and he fell in love w/ the campus and the program for his major and the school’s resources. He isn’t too keen on it’s frat participation (something like 60%) and hopes that as a non-drinker, partier he’ll find people to hang with and won’t feel on the fringe. He’s determined to apply; if he’s lucky enough to get in, I just hope the social atmosphere will allow him to be happy.</p>
<p>MOSB - Hope today is a better day.</p>
<p>Shawbridge - My heart goes out to you and your family. Such heartbreak. I hope your mom is doing better. After my surgery it took two years to clear up all the medical claims from unknown doctors, unknown treatments and unknown meds. Fortunately I was not working and had the time to pursue everything. I am very persistent and didn’t care if insurance covered the claim or not. I did not want something paid if the service wasn’t provided. Good to know you can hire people to help you with this.</p>
<p>fogfog - Sounds like the overnights proved to be very valuable. We’ll be praying for those ACT points.</p>
<p>Hope everyone’s kids have a productive day.</p>
<p>fogfog - thanks.</p>
<p>RenaissanceMom - I know what you mean. I’ve heard many times on this forum and elsewhere that each college has kids who drink and kids who don’t. Hopefully our kids will fit at the place where they end up.</p>
<p>It was somewhat productive day here. EA app is done. S is debating if he wants to show his essays to one of the English teachers. Our school hires an essay consultant for the first semester and she already reviewed his essays, but he is thinking that a second opinion wont hurt. In any case he will push the submit button next week.</p>
<p>The scholarship application that he needs to submit by Oct 1st is a killer. But he made a lot of progress today.</p>
<p>Good luck to all awaiting ACT scores this week!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I don’t know what this is? Can you explain?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>We try to get GC to a restaurant or store poplular in the area of the college the grad will be attending. Bar that we just give money, amount depends on how well we know the grad. </p>
<p>Parties run from those catered in halls (hotel/VFW/social club) to BBQ in back yard. Not sure what we are doing, we are not normally the type to make a big deal over this type of thing and would normally just do a bbq thing in back yard. Part of the decision will rest on what kind of money we need for college, we could end up with a bill over 54K to something much less than that. In addition, S has a younger D starting middle school next year. She is in a relatively inexpensive private this year, but that bill could increase substantional for 6th grade. So, if we are paying big bucks for college and D’s school, the party will be less grand than if we aren’t feeling pressed. And of course, it will depend on what S would like. I am interested in finding out what others are doing.</p>
<p>Senior dedication “pages” for our high school is actually a half or quarterpage in the back of the yearbook that parents can by as a tribute to your senior. They usually include a childhood picture and a current picture and some sort of message from the family. Helps to lower the cost of the yearbook for everyone.</p>
<p>Graduation parties here are usually open house events at seniors’ homes. Some families may go together and have a party for three or four close friends at a club or church. Last year, although our son was a junior we had many friends with senior children. For three straight weekends we went to three open houses on both Saturdy and Sunday. They are informal. You go, give the senior a hug and a card with small check/gift card, congratulate the parents and enjoy some really good homemade food and good company of friends.</p>
<p>My kids have had specific food requests for their parties. The major one was “NO SHEET CAKE!” But they wanted my brownies, Dad’s guacamole, and some other family recipes.</p>
<p>I just submitted my son’s Senior Page. I’ll include the text below. I did look at past year’s yearbooks to make sure I wasn’t going to embarass him by being too sappy :-)</p>
<p>Graduation Parties around here run the gammut from rental halls to backyards. Ours is going to be a backyard get together. That way friends and family can come and go and eat and drink as they please. I have a large family and everyone usually brings their specialty dish to things like this so it helps lesson the financial cost. I did but some decorations near the end of June (after graduation season was over) at 75% off in my son’s school colors so I won’t have to do that! (I just need to remember where I put them…lol)</p>
<p>Here’s the Senior Page text:</p>
<p>You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.-Winnie the Pooh</p>
<p>How can it be that my baby has turned into such a fine young man ready to head off to college when it seems like only yesterday you were learning to write your name? We are so very proud of you! Your strength of character and faith and willingness to make the tough choices are what make you the unique individual that you are. The whole world lay before you just waiting for you to make it your own. Stay true to yourself and know that, no matter what path you take in life, you will always have the love of your family and God. We love you to the moon and back again to infinity and beyond!</p>
<pre><code> Mom and Dad
</code></pre>
<p>For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.<br>
Jeremiah 29: 11</p>
<p>keylimepie, do the kids that did the ACT with writing get scores this week as well or do we have to wait?</p>
<p>shawbridge, I think you’ll see the multiple choice scores online this week, but the Writing score will come out 2 weeks later.</p>
<p>Flmathmom, thanks for your concern. It was a while ago and now my mother has fully recovered. She’s getting pretty old but she goes to the gym 5 days a week and travels by train to visit her children in various cities. </p>
<p>I didn’t have time to pursue everything on the medical bills or learn to read the statements and it was great to find someone who could do that and then argue (successfully) with the insurance companies.</p>
<p>momofzach - That was beautiful. My S said no to the dedication page. Maybe I should do it anyway. Hmmm. </p>
<p>I’ll have to find out about parties. Not on my radar screen yet. Too much in front of it.</p>
<p>Second app in the hopper. My S gets such pleasure hitting the SUBMIT key. Me too seeing his smile. 5 more to go!</p>
<p>An Open House seems to be the celebration of choice for the graduates at our school. I’d agree with the kids who say no sheet cake. In '08 when oldest daughter graduated, we had a cake in addition to a platter of homemade cookies my mother made. The cookies disappeared quickly! And my mother was sending recipes to guests for weeks. Lots of families have a birth to graduation slideshow going on the computer or TV. I displayed daughter’s high school scrapbook I put together (sure hope I find time to finish D2’s by June), and we used the last few blank pages as a guest book/autograph page. I made a little shrine to the college she was going to attend with balloons and university colors. One of the local party stores has a great selection of high school paper good and decorations for the bigger schools. Our small private school wasn’t in the mix, but I could find plenty of supplies in the high school colors.</p>
<p>As far as gifts go, earlier this year I read to give a check in the amount of the graduation year. I gave a couple of $20.10 checks this past year. Both boys who received them mentioned that it was clever gift in their thank yous. Next June I plan on writing a few $20.11 checks.</p>
<p>Update on my mom…</p>
<p>Last night was peaceful until about 3:30 am when the stomach troubles began to rage again. One thing I’ve learned is that when the stomach is thrown out of whack by something like pain meds, it takes longer than you would think to settle down – long after you’ve stopped taking the offending pills.</p>
<p>Anyway, it was rough going all early-morning. My dad and I felt we’d done all we could for her at home, and we set a “deadline” of noon. We told my mom that if
the situation didn’t turn around by then, we felt we needed to take her to the ER. To my surprise, she didn’t push back on that at all. She said, “That sounds right because I really don’t think I can take much more of this.”</p>
<p>To our delight, though, by 9am things were looking better, and by noon she was able to eat tiny amounts of very bland food AND keep it down. My dad and I felt like dancing in the street.</p>
<p>We’ve totally discontinued the Tramadol…she’s getting great pain relief from the pain-patches.</p>
<p>She slept all afternoon, and I knew she truly was feeling better when she asked around 4pm if we thought she’d be able to take a shower and wash her hair in the morning. Yay!</p>
<p>Thanks again to all who touched base with me through the weekend. Every single message was heartening to me, and I really empathize with those of you who’ve gone through (or are going through) serious illnesses/loss of loved ones, or chronic illnesses of your own. You’re all in my thoughts and prayers, and so are your children as they continue to work on apps, visits, and the million other wonderful things they do.</p>
<p>I hope you all have a great week!</p>
<p>MOSB - Glad to read your Mother is doing better. </p>
<p>
Love the scrapbook and college idea. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>we did these when S graduated from middle school, haven’t heard anything yet regarding yearbook at his current school. 300+ kids, so maybe they don’t do it? I will have to ask S if he got anything, wouldn’t surprise me he threw it out or forgot to pass it along. Usually though, stuff like this is sent to parents in the weekly email we get. </p>
<p>shawbridge- when S took ACT in June, he got multiple choice first then writing scores about 10 days later I think.</p>
<p>Busy weekend and I know S did not do anything on his essay. He promised to have a rewrite done by Wed though. I am trying to coordinate all the teacher rec info this week so S can pass those along to his teachers even though he won’t be starting to hit submit for a few weeks. I still haven’t looked at the common app, but assume that for the schools that accept the CA, the teachers only need to fill out the form online once and hit submit, correct? Does S need to also give them some login info?</p>
<p>MOSB: glad to hear that she is doing better…maybe you’ve turned a corner. I know that having my hair done always makes me feel good!</p>
<p>PHBMOM: I love the idea of the 20.11 checks. Very clever and appropriate.</p>
<p>PHBMOM: I, too, love the idea and I think I am going to make it mine. But I think I might do a twenty dollar bill and 11 pennies…they’ll love that…hahaha</p>
<p>Hi All</p>
<p>Kiddo’s ACT score came up 2 pts for the composite! It was already a respectable score yet kiddo was unhappy with one section because of testing issues (proctor)
so retook it. Both super scored and the second score are equal–so these two scores give a nice picture.</p>
<p>I have to put my thinking cap on for the sr page and also what to do for grad.
Years ago when I finished hs–my parents gave a family bbq—everyone brought gifts which were things for the dorm etc. That was typical for our area and that time.</p>
<p>Here the parties range quite alot and I am not sure what kiddo will want to do…or whats in the budget. We generally keep things low key as it is and yet since kiddo’s birthday regularly falls when the school is on a break, kiddo has hardly ever had a B-day party is 17 yrs! I think we have done 2 that I can think of…So I feel like we need to mark this event in some way…kwim</p>
<p>Happy Monday ;o)</p>
<p>2011 Son took the ACT again because he forgot his calculator in June. Sept. math score was the same (29). Ugh! What kills me is that his composite score went up two points because he now has a 36 English, 35 Science and 34 Reading. This is a kid who says he has no interest in humanities, only wants to study computer science. He’s never had anything positive to say about an English teacher or anything he’s read in English class. Oh well, maybe he’ll end up writing science fiction as a hobby someday. I just wonder if he’ll be happy in a computer science career when his talents appear to be more humanities focused.</p>
<p>Glad your Mom is feeling better - a shower and hairwash should improve things too!</p>
<p>Woke at 12 07 am! No alarm, just excited! D’s ACT scores were in - up 3 points to a 30, now in top quartile for her ED school! Thrilled, hopefully that will help. Now to get her to finish the Common App essay. Getting closer to the finish line.</p>
<p>Senior dedication, with 1st day Elementary school pic and senior pic for yearbook, should look cute but not TOO cheesy!</p>
<p>Congrats on scores! And my best wishes to you and your mom, mosb.</p>
<p>Apollo, your S’s scores are fantastic, as you know. Please don’t sweat the math score. I think schools understand that these things happen. My D1 had a very high ACT composite, and went for very competitive schools, but she never broke 30 on Math. We know in her case it was a very bad math curriculum that our district had experimented with (since discarded), that was especially poor preparation for the ACT. Many variables are involved in this. No one is going to look at your S’s scores and think he doesn’t have what it takes.</p>
<p>We had a fun Homecoming weekend, especially our Japanese D. And my D is “getting there” with her essays … I chant mosb’s “little steps” mantra hourly … and no word yet from our priority app, not sure how long that takes.</p>
<p>So much to juggle. I want to leave as much as I can to her, but I think I’ll have to step in more on things like yearbook deadlines, etc. She’s come a huge way in being so capable, so put together - except it really takes a superkid to manage everything that goes on at this point, and it’s hard to expect that of anyone.</p>
<p>We’ll have the same kind of party as we had for D1 - people to the house, mostly homemade food (my H LOVES to cook for a crowd). A little display of pictures, some stuff about college. I’m sure she’ll make the collage herself; D1 still has hers up in her bedroom, posterboards of pictures and other mementos of HS and childhood. Around here people have these simple parties for 2-3 hours and try to stagger them over the several weekends around graduation so everyone can kind of float from one to the other, mostly the kids. </p>
<p>I love that gift idea! I know people long ago who did something like that for birthdays, I think the kid’s age in dollars, and the kids would be dreaming of the day they would finally get $20!</p>